A Waltz Played Backwards
by twilightjunkie1313
Summary: Intervention isn't possible. This sort of chaos is a part of him. Destruction and brilliance that exist in a mad harmony. Three moments that make Sherlock more and less than his addiction.


Seven Percent.

(Sherlock fiction)

Author Note: I do not own what is not mine. Also, please read the warning.

Warning: This contains references to drug usage, imagery of and reference to the Roman Catholic Church, swearing, weird relationship dynamics between brothers, mentions of trading sex for drugs, graphic imagery, theft, non-sexual voyeurism that boarders on obsessive behavior, non-sexual exhibitionism that boarders on suicidal, dark!John and depressed!Sherlock. This work also includes breaking and entering without adequate permission and drugging people without obtaining consent.

This work contains Irene Adler.

…

…

Mycroft takes his time picking the lock.

Sherlock had expected his brother to stay away from this place. It's part of the appeal. The anonymity of this place full of people his brother would use and never value beyond using. It's why he had chosen it.

Sherlock isn't surprised when he registers his older brother ease the door open, cross the threshold and close the door with an echoing click. It had been a possibility, albeit a very slight one. He knows, down to the hour, how long it has been since his older brother has spoken to him.

The flat is empty, only it isn't. Mycroft is a Holmes.

There is a mattress upon the floor of the flat. The carpeting hasn't been washed and the mattress looks just as battered. A single rumpled sheet spread over the whole thing and haphazardly loose at three corners. Books are everywhere, open medical textbooks showing diagrams of veins, closed stacked titles about psychology. There are a few assorted hardcover's on top of an upturned crate. A very used backpack slumps in the corner beside the bathroom door.

Sherlock doesn't speak. The hand resting behind his neck grasps at his hair and he tugs gently, trying to work out the nervous energy in his system. There is a grim understanding between the two of them. He is splayed out on the mattress. Chewing his lower lip while his eyes stay fixed on the ceiling.

Mycroft searched for him, sifted through all the narrows and hollows that could hold Sherlock until he has located the one that actually does. Mycroft takes a step forward, it's all controlled and exacting but it lacks the fluidity of Sherlock's movements. The step is a question, because they are two people who know enough to make the words redundant.

The breath that Sherlock exhales is deep, it flairs his nostrils and moves his ribcage. He closes his eyes.

It's permission and the brutality of razor edged forgiveness. Sherlock stays still. Mycroft observes.

There are track marks, fresh and old muddled together on the skin of Sherlock's inner elbow. The arm is turned out, exposed and dangling off the mattress, obvious. There is muscle there, lean and subtle underneath the skin, the track marks dot off along Sherlock's forearm.

Sherlock knows what Mycroft sees. His brain is muted, yes. But he can still feel it, the connection to his mechanisms as his mind pleads and screams and knifes through the image he is presenting. The way his tee-shirt is a bit too snug and rides up his concave stomach just so. The tight fit of his jeans and faded bruise just under his jaw line. The lack of shoes and socks. Unkempt hair, shadows underneath his eyes.

When Mycroft finishes looking around Sherlock can all but feel the way his brother's mind shifts. Mycroft may be done looking at the room, but he isn't done seeing it. Sherlock's eyes flutter open.

It's deliberate, Sherlock thinks. Mycroft is always deliberate. His brother is crossing the rest of the room and bending stiffly. Sherlock can see Mycroft run an index finger over the bruised crease of an elbow. The sensation registers. So does the sentiment.

"Mycroft."

Sherlock wonders when he's last spoken to someone, his voice is heavy with grit and sleep. It is impossible. He hasn't slept for a few days.

His brain doesn't let him sleep. It grinds over information and shudders under the weight of remembering people's hands on his skin.

Mycroft exhales and stands. His phone is already out of his pocket, eyes unfocused as he texts a message to someone. Sherlock rolls his head back, exposing a bruised throat that snares Mycroft's attention.

Sherlock hasn't moved much. Mycroft hasn't spoken yet. They are both on the knife edge of something and Sherlock waits. He arches his back and rolls his hips, motions he has learned uses for. He hears the catch in Mycroft's breathing, a sharp pause in the exhale.

"Sherlock."

There is a tone of well controlled pain in Mycroft's voice that Sherlock notes with a twisted variation of joy.

They are the Holmes brothers.

Sherlock would be remiss if he didn't correct his brother's oversight. Mycroft has always held Sherlock to a standard. Had held Sherlock to a standard, right up until the theory is pulled out of Mycroft's brain and bound with thread made of Mycroft's heart muscle. Sherlock holds the theory out like an inheritance.

He demands that Mycroft accept it. Demands that Mycroft understand.

"You found me."

Sherlock's voice is still full of gritty syllables. Mycroft is taking care to not touch anything, it's a contained authority that Sherlock wants to knife at. He wonders how much time they have.

"I did."

Mycroft isn't going to let him stay here.

"I didn't ask you."

Sherlock shifts, a series of seamless motions that result in him sitting on the mattress with his elbows on his knees and his shoulders pulled forward.

"It isn't your decision to make."

Sherlock narrows his eyes. He understands that Mycroft wants to clean him up and make him good again, turn him into something functional. Sherlock has tried that, being something functional. It makes him feel empty.

"Mycroft."

There is something off in Sherlock's voice. Something that he will need to analyze later. Right now, Sherlock is looking at his brother. He feels his lips part just enough to start shaping a word.

He closes his mouth.

Mycroft is still looking at him, holding his cell phone in one hand. They have the same elegant digits, perfect for piano or the violin. Adept. Mycroft has found Sherlock, despite Sherlock not wanting to be found. Not like this, because Mycroft has expectations and Sherlock knows that sensation and sentiment are weaknesses held by others. Weaknesses his brain had pleaded for after trying them once. Sherlock had been stubborn, created a new set of rules to follow in the wake of his brother's shattered expectations.

He had burned his bank card, right alongside the drivers license that bore his birthright. Holmes. He fucked people for money. Was fucked for money. Sometimes his clients were gentle but more often they were not.

He had dry heaved over a grimy toilet, because he'd forgotten to eat before giving his mind the sensation it wanted. He lost track of days. He kept the door locked and woke up sweating in the bathtub sometimes. He has come to consciousness with bruised ribs and shaking hands on the curb of an alley.

His mind had sung for it, a siren call twisted around. All the chaos went away, for a few brilliant moments. Replaced quickly with an overwhelming amount of detail and his brain screamed, ordered it all into reason and showed it to him. An elegant harmony found only in the high.

Sherlock knows it is written across his skin. The sentiment and the failure and the blinding chemical distraction. He tries very hard not to think about if he wants to get clean or give up on the cold rush of liquid going into his veins.

…

…

John finds him.

Sherlock is a sociopath. If he didn't believe it before, he believes now.

John Hamish Watson will make Sherlock his religion. He will hold that self diagnosis up against the sun like a crucifix. It will withstand scrutiny.

He is blindingly beautiful, lain up and on display. (The way a killer would present their finest achievement.) His frame arranged neatly on the kitchen table, ice pale skin contrasting with the tourniquet. Syringe completely still, sharing the surface of the wood with all of Sherlock's mass. It is miraculous. Limbs splayed like a sacrifice that is too damn proud to bleed.

John will worship this image until the end of his days. He has no choice, it's burned into him alongside gunshots and the smell of copper thick blood. It is a part of him that he cannot wash off, the last touch of a lover or the sand of Afghanistan.

He locks the door to the flat with a hollow click. Hangs his jacket with eyes fixed on the man who arranged a flameless pyre and volunteered to lay upon it. John doesn't make note of all the things that are off, the objects that have shifted location… moved into the living room to nestle between bookshelves and plush armchairs.

John slides the kitchen doors closed. Somebody could see this, could see the three nicotine patches on the forearm that bears a few bruising dots. John is reverent and he would sooner take the bullet to his shoulder again than allow anyone to see this side of Sherlock. For surely this image, his Sherlock on a table arranged vaguely like a body in a morgue, is sacred. Succumbed to mortal weaknesses, inhuman mind and very human body held still with a force that (John knows this if he knows anything, because Sherlock is always exceptional) would kill anyone less.

John closes his eyes against the understanding that Sherlock did this for him. A fragile genius that posed his body and arranged an exhibition for a single soul to view. John opens his eyes, because this is a rare series of connected seconds. The anger will come later. Right now Sherlock is vulnerable. Made himself intentionally so, if John understands the language Sherlock is speaking with. The sentiment intended and the sentiment shown.

Sherlock's body is breathing. John has moved close enough to see the crinkles at the outsides of Sherlock's eyelids when they flutter. He can hear the slight gasps that push out of lungs. The tips of Sherlock's fingers move, a brush against the molecules in the air that makes John wonder if Sherlock can feel things that acutely. If his brain is calibrated to such extensive detail.

John stands vigil. Sitting feels sacrilegious, he cannot bear to pull his eyes away. As with everything else, Sherlock is contrary. A study in extremes. He is a beautiful disaster. Courting death as a lover. Fully unconscious, Sherlock has never appeared more alive.

John does not lose track of time. He keeps minutes and exhales tied down in the back of his mind. He can see Sherlock's pulse in his neck. It had been a stunning thing, like an offering of immortality. He had grasped at it and accepted it with a whispered yes, because such offers only come once. Sometimes not at all. He counts Sherlock's heartbeats this way.

It is how he measures time for a span. The only thing that feels significant.

John startles when all of Sherlock's brain screams into life. It throws itself online. John watches. The calm medical part of him, the doctor that bled through a battlefield, lists off the signs a seizure. Sherlock's brain is still tearing at itself, forcing a hand to clench and unclench. A spine bends and arches. Vocal cords stammer in low baritone. Sherlock's brain pushes and pulls at his body.

This happens three times.

John cleans him. Touching Sherlock when he is pliant and unable to protest is wrong. Leaving him with saliva sliding a trail across his cheek toward his ear is a sin against different, more personal, ethics. John presses a clean damp flannel to Sherlock's forehead. He ignores the way Sherlock's cheekbones look fragile in a specific light.

John does something else too, he leans across Sherlock's body and loosens the tourniquet. It still bites into the skin of Sherlock's arm, but less so.

When Sherlock begins coming around, John notices. He sees the signs because he is both paying attention and willing them to appear. The heartbeat at the side of Sherlock's neck slows. His shoulders relax and his head tilts off at a slight angle.

John hasn't been blinking much. Hasn't looked away at all. Devout in his newfound faith and profoundly aware of the breath that he has been holding in. When Sherlock's eyes open it's one smooth movement. John can see, he is observing. Bright blue-grey (the ashes of England should it ever burn) optics are unfocused for a moment. Then they focus and oh, he has forgotten what it felt like to be under scrutiny so tinted by affection.

Sherlock holds eye contact, before shifting his focus to a place on John's neck and asking a question with quiet words. John doesn't hear over the sound of Sherlock's body language. There is an overtone of submission in Sherlock laying down. John wonders if this, more than the obvious insomnia, is why Sherlock hates to sleep.

Sherlock blinks. He is sitting cross legged on the table, fingers reaching at the tourniquet. John is making an effort now, to meet Sherlock's eyes or at least catch them. Except this awake Sherlock seems reluctant to return John's glances.

They act and react. A language without words or confirmations. It's hesitant.

Sherlock doesn't get off the table right away, the words _I did this for you_ sit right under his jaw line. When he cants his jaw up, a motion that was arrogance but somehow isn't arrogance right now, John blinks.

There, all but tattooed against Sherlock's jugular vein is the question _did you see me _right where John spent an undefined time making sure blood still traveled to Sherlock's brain. It is a question that he cannot answer, because of course he saw.

John takes the tourniquet off the table _why did you leave yourself alone_ and pockets it. Sherlock is still lingering in the kitchen.

John rolls his weight forward, shifting closer to the table. _Why have you done this _is visible on the table when John presses his index finger to the wood. The table has always been an alter. Because Sherlock worshiped science, so it had been cluttered with things that bring order. Tools to gain answers with. Now, when Sherlock needed to worship something… the table is an alter still. The place Sherlock selects to submit his body as tribute. _How much do you need to feel_ flares up from the base of John's spine and they both freeze in tandem.

The syringe rolls a quarter turn.

John feels the word _catalyst_ wrap around one wrist. Sherlock pivots on the ball of his foot and ends up leaning against part of the counter. John wants to start this with a knife to Sherlock's ribs, something that will bite and mark and scar. _You told Lestrade you were clean_ he wants to say. Only Sherlock doesn't meet John's accusatory glance _how could you do this to yourself, to me_ he is too busy looking at the syringe.

"You're coming down."

It's a medical assessment. Coldly delivered. John is impressed with himself. He estimates they have half a dozen sentences between the two of them before this conversation turns into silence or a shouting match.

"Yes."

Something sparks against John's memory. He knows, with the clarity of an epiphany, that the first word out of Sherlock was John's name. There is no question.

"You had three seizures."

Sherlock's eyes widen only briefly, but John is paying attention.

"You're a doctor."

"I wasn't there when you tied off and shot up-"

John is very aware of the tourniquet in his pocket.

"-so let's not pretend that I gave you my blessing."

The expression on Sherlock's face is complex. John notices the way Sherlock's hands grip the countertop a little tighter, knuckles a lighter shade of anemically white.

"I knew you'd be back soon."

Sherlock pauses over the wrong words, inserting _I knew you would be home_ as subtext.

"You couldn't know."

"I had a reasonable idea."

"No."

Sherlock flicks a glance at John, _I am doing the best I can_ (and John can see the way England would burn.) _I expected you to be better._

"There is nothing reasonable about shooting up-"

"I measured the dosage exactly."

"-where absolutely anyone could have found you-"

"Nonsense. You are the only one who has keys."

"-spread out on the table like a corpse."

The syringe rolls an eighth of a turn, John presses both palms flat against the table. _It's an alter_ his mind whispers _this table held London's martyr and your savior._

"_What are you on?"_

_Sherlock rolls his forearm out, exposing the patches that John already knows about before tugging his shirtsleeve higher, it's fallen down a bit. He blinks hard._

"_Cocaine."_

…

…

_Sherlock's clothing itches._

_Coming out of sedation is remarkably similar to being put under. _

_His eyes are opening and blinking against the image of his bedroom. The light from the lamp posts outside. He can feel the tips of his fingers and he rolls, twisting about in blankets that stick and catch against his clothing. _

_The window is open, his coat is hanging on the back of the door._

_The feeling of being forcibly put in a straight jacket is starting to fade off. Sherlock is grateful. He can feel his mind trying to pull itself into alignment. _

_Adler had given him a sedative, quick, dirty and so very elegant. She distracted John and then proceeded to overpower Sherlock. None too kind about jabbing a needle into his arm, but it hadn't broken off underneath the skin._

_Sherlock's willing to bet his eyes that she only uses clean syringes. _

_He wonders if she had found the set of lock picks he keeps in the jacket. Or the extra fifty pounds he has in smaller bills, bribe money for information, for his network. He keeps a small switchblade and a lighter in the coat on occasion. One of the badges he'd confiscated from Lastrade. He hopes she'd have the decency to just put the coat on the hook and leave it well enough alone._

_His phone makes a sound._

_Sherlock isn't sure he likes the idea of Irene Adler messing about on his mobile without getting his permission. She has apparently gone ahead and done so anyway. It's entirely possible that she stood in his bedroom and smirked at his indisposed transport while she modified his text alert sound._

_How devious._

_His brain pulls away from him and he lets it fly. Experience says that this is the most beneficial way to think. His mind runs, fixates on Adler and compiles the data._

_If he were more poetic, more like John and his blog that abuses language in general and adjectives specifically… he would say the woman was dancing with him. Countering every action of his with a perfect response._

_He broke into her house, she stood in his bedroom and watched him while he was completely powerless. His skill set all but demanded her nudity. She took his coat when he offered it and made his into hers. He had held her life in the palm of his hands, tossed it into the air and caught it again._

_She took his ability to think, rendered his transport useless and flounced out the window after telling John (who had operated under the impression that certain consulting detectives were unquestionably asexual ) that Sherlock Holmes had unabashedly observed her nudity long enough to gain her measurements._

_Sherlock is still wearing socks. _

_Honestly. John must have removed his shoes, but didn't bother with the socks. Inefficient. Sherlock knows they've got the same anatomy, they are both male. John is a doctor, a medical man. He's likely had his fingers inside the rectums of dozens of men in the name of… at the very least he could have un-tucked Sherlock's shirt. _

_Or removed it. It's bunched horrifically around his shoulders. _

_How does anyone expect him to sleep if he's been unceremoniously heaved onto his bed and strangled in the bed sheets?_

…


End file.
